THE ODD LOT and MAIN BOARD LOT STOCK MARKET

What is Oddlot Market versus Normal Market in a stock exchange?

You’re familiar with the different kinds of markets we have in real life.

I’m pretty sure you’re accustomed with the market for meats of chicken and beefs, the market for fishes, and the market for fruits and veggies. Being the famed location showing varied preferences and choices of food, the market is the place where ordinary people go to.

There’s also the market for superheroes. They are called supermarket.

>_<

image from http://jonhappiness.blogspot.com

HAHA.

Alright, let’s get serious to the topic now.

When it comes to investing in the Philippine Stock Market, you can place your orders in two possible markets. If you want to sound a big guy in the financial jargons, you can call them two market segments in your sharing to your friends.

These are the Normal Market and the Oddlot Market.

So what’s the difference between the two?

The main difference lies in the volume (or number of shares of stocks) contained in your buy or sell order, as governed by the board lot table. [Check this blog for the principle of board lot table]

Normal Market is equivalent to the Main Board in the old trading system. Under the New Trading System, Board lot orders are traded in the Normal Market.

Oddlot Market is equivalent to the Odd Lot Board in the old trading system.Under the New Trading System, orders with volume less than the defined Board lot are traded in the Oddlot Market.

In short, any stock order with volume as multiples of a board lot can only be placed in the Normal/Main Board Market. If you have stock shares in your stock portfolio whose volume is less than a board lot volume, you can put them under the Oddlot Market.

SOME NOTES

It is important to note that both market segments are defined separately and are independent from one another during trading. That means one security (or stock) is fluctuating separately in the Oddlot Market and Normal Main Board Market.

As a result, one stock can have two different prevailing market prices defined separately for the two markets at the same time. It also follows that each market will have its own Bid/Offer prices for all the stocks.

What’s common with the Main Board and Oddlot Market?

Both markets however follow the same principles resting on the law of supply and demand which explains the differences in the stock prices for these two segments. Because of the differences in buying and selling forces present in the two markets,they do not necessarily have the same closing prices for each stock.

Meralco stocks for example (stock code: MER) could be trading at 250 in the normal market, while it might just be trading at 200 level in the oddlot market. It would always boil down to the undisputable law of supply and demand being cooked in the two markets. Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has set regulations to ensure that there’s going to be a fair market condition for all. The Oddlot market is strictly for Oddlot orders.

Now let’s see how this translates to real action.

You can see below a stock quote for SM Development Corporation (stock code: SMDC). With its prevailing market price at 6.93, within the range [5.00-9.99], the board lot table says that its one board lot is equivalent to 100 shares. That means you can put stock orders in the Main Board Lot with volumes as multiple of 100. In the example below, you can see that all volumes (under the size column) are indeed multiples of 100. You won’t see an order that has a volume less than 100 in this main market. You can only see them in the Oddlot Market.

MAIN BOARD LOT MARKET

Below is the stock quote of the same stock SMDC at the same day but in an Oddlot Market. Here you can see that the volumes of all the existing orders, both buy and sell, are less than 100.

ODDLOT MARKET

You can also notice that compared with the Main Board Market, the Oddlot market is quite not liquidly traded – meaning, there are only fewer transactions going on. In fact you can see in the Last 5 Trades section that at the time of this screenshot, only one transaction has been made. You can even see volume equal to two shares. HAHA. I don’t know if that seller can even receive anything after all the associated charges and commission is subtracted from the gross sale. J

In my next blog, we’ll tackle the commission and charges associated with these two market segments. In the meantime, enjoy shopping in these markets!